Dreams Unlocked

it's 12:30 at night - actually 11:30 my time. i am in calgary for the new pastor's orientation. out flight was delayed which caused us to arrive an hour late which was a bit embarrasing. we got a nice overview of the baptist union of western canada and exposure to some of the different ministries. after i went for a few beers with some pastors from sechelt and saskatoon. i am rooming w. josh, who just fell asleep. i thought i was getting sick yesterday but am feeling better today. it's odd to think that i am now a pastor - that this is now my profession. had an excellent first@night last night - probably our best one yet. former slave mercy senahe shared her story which was quite amazing - lots of good questions form the audience and a general good vibe afterwards. i'm going to bed.

i have been tagged which means i have to answer a series of questions from carla. here they are: 4 Jobs I've had: delivery boy at the bay - i would carry people's stuff for them out to their cars domino's pizza delivery person pastor gas station attendent 4 Movies I can watch over and over: apocalypse now big lebowski usual suspects chariots of fire 4 Places I have lived: saskatoon regina calgary bangalore india 4 TV shows I love to watch: 24 lost the office nypd blue (sadly off the air now) 4 Places I've been on Vacation: banff san diego miami nyc 4 Favorite Dishes: pizza lobster sushi masala dosa 4 websites I visit daily: drudgerport christianity today atu2 the superficial 4 Places I would rather be right now: hawai - i know 8 people who have been / are there or are going there this month paris dublin - will be there in 2 weeks! playing w. adam 4 people I'm tagging: no one - the buck stops here "whatever you wish to keep, you'd better grab it fast. i have

stayed home w. the boy this morning as felicia slept after working a night shift. went into the office and took josh (the youth pastor) out for lunch for his b-day. fatburger!!! yay! i missed the grease. came back and did some more sunday prep as well as prepping for the 2 weeks that i will be away in march. i'm getting pretty excited about my upcoming travels - calgary for a couple of days, then 2 weeks in the U.K. with church health and planting. had a good w.out this afternoon. btw - i have discovered podcasts. i subscribe to 4: mosaic - erwin mcmanus, imago dei - rick mckinley, ravi zacharias and ricky gervais. the gervais one is over now. it is such a convenient way to get excellent sermons. that's what i listen to when i do cardio. so if you have an ipod or itunes i highly recommend it. "not bad, i guess." - felicia.

what a difference a day can mmake. monday night and all day tuesday i was totally down about a bunch of things that were pressing in on me. and then today i talked with someone that i had felt really hurt by. she apologized to me and i to her and we had an awesome time of prayer and reconciliation. god is so good. i know for sure now that these last couple of days have been days of attack. i felt so awesome as i walked home from the church this evening. funny story - i went to see my physiotherapist today. he's fixing my screwed up back. he gives you these shorts to wear so you can do the stretching. the last thing he did was he hooked me up to this machine that gives you a massage. it was so nice and relaxing that i fell asleep. then i got up and got changed. later when i went to use the washroom at work, i looked down and noticed i was STILL WEARING THE SHORTS!!! i wondered why i was feeling fatter. well, the ladies in the office had a good laugh at my expense. and then i had to

my friend warren described his experience at a church in calgary. he made the interesting comment that he probably talked to more people at a movie then at this particular church. (p.s. - i would ignore the name of the church) now he may have just run into the wrong people on this particualr day. but i think his comment concerns me - if i were a non-believer and i wandered into a church and i saw lots of people talking to each other and i was being totally ignored, i wouldn't return to such a church. the whole aspect of being relational and engaging other human beings needs to be regained in our churches. people in large urban centers are starving for real human contact. i pass by probably over 50 people in the 8 blocks it takes me to get to the church everyday - i do not connect w. a single one of them - we pass each other as if we are invisible. this has got to do something to your soul. we are created for community. this is one of the gifts that the church can offer the world -

spent most of the day going over budget stuff and grant applications - funf fun fun. tonight was interesting. at 6:15 there was only me, felicia, the guy leading worship and 1 other guy there - no one else from the leadership team was there. at 6:30 there was like 4 people in pinder hall. we were praying in a corner and i confessed that i was feeling totally discouraged. i was working overtime to get the funding for the next year and here no one is showing up. after we prayed within 5 minutes there was 35 people there - so that was cool. also 2 people are joining our bible study in march. i spoke on the birthing contest between rachel and leah in gen. 29-30. leah and rachel only had children of their own when god opened their wombs. our of barreness god breathes in fertility. we were pretty barren at 6:30 - we prayed and god breathed life into us. soli deo gloria.

breaking up the fallow ground. another bright sunny day in vancouver - such a nice treat from the usual grey pounding rain. the people here are complaining about the cold! bone chilling -5!!! my parents are freezing in -30 regina. vancouver people are wimps. good leadership meeting last night - although not everyone could come. still it was encouraging. i probably mentioned before that i am reading "emerging churches" by bolger and gibbs. this is a fantastic book. what is amazing to me is that things that characterize emergent churches are all things that we have been doing at first@night. that shows me that we are in sync with what the Spirit is doing around the world. i've also been feeling all week that we are on the verge of something breaking in vancoouver. we've seen little flashes of it here and there but there is a breakthrough coming. day off today!!! brunch at milestones w. the fam pick up a video pick up starbucks read at home go see the foreign film cache

well my self esteem has recovered with all those loving posts after my whining and begging for encouragement. much love everyone. crazy day today - running around like a madman. got the sermon done. started on a proposal for council that has to be reviewed by 3 different people before i can even present it. in the middle of all that headed out for lunch over on commerical drive w. a new guy who is coming to first@night. he is a sr. analyst at a bank and very very into theology and biblical studies. it was good to connect w. him. was walking down seymour st. when i saw something quite odd. there was a hummer parked - suddenly a little mini cooper comes out of nowhere, parks behind it - a girl jumps out runs up to the hummer and puts a bumper sticker on it that says "i'm changing the climate". i'd like to change her climate - that's not very nice, even if it is true. i'm waiting for the hummer hybrid. i can't believe that we have been carless for 6 mths. now

i'm bummed - no one gave me an encouraging comment on my last post - where is the love people? 2:31 pm - sitting in the office - finished all the exegetical work on my sermon - gen 29:31-30:24 - leah/rachel have a birthing contest. listening to a sermon by mark driscoll on this same passage - its ok - he seems like he's really anti-women and has a voice like rush limbaugh's. beautiful sunshine today. what can i tell you? life is good and i feel loved.

last night i was slightly discouraged. we normally average 50-60/week at first@night. last sunday we had 30 and this sunday we had 25. i know i know - some of you will say don't focus on the numbers - easier said then done. numbers do mean something - they don't mean everything but they mean SOMETHING. i don't care if we get big but i do care if we disappear. on the positive side there were 3 guys who said they would start coming to bible study - that has never happened any sunday before. last night i talked about love - jacob falling in love w. rachel - so i played a clip from big fat greek wedding and then later the song "goodbye my lover" by james blunt - very very sad break-up song. he conludes the song by singing "i'm so hollow baby" over and over. interesting point - there are 3 stories in the bible of women coming to draw water from a well. and they all have something to do w. jacob. jacob's mother rebekkah met isaac's servant - jacob

i woke up this morning and looked down fromthe bed at adam holding my glasses - in 2 pieces. adam in less then 2 seconds successfully snapped one arm off my glasses - it is irreparable. i spend the morning angry at my son - giving him dirty looks - not reading to him. after a while i stopped sulking. so - had to get new glasses - i went to this place at robson and thurlow - it is a total hong kong style store - but they always give good deals. my new glasses were priced 275 - i got them for 160 - tax included. but now as i wear them - they feel too tight and i feel like i have a constant headache while i wear them - hopefully i can get bigger ones tomorrow. also club monaco was having this crazy sale - turtleneck sweaters normally 60$ are $9 - again i make a mistake - i take the size medium instead of the extra large that i wanted. my receipt is marked FINAL SALE which looks quite ominous - but i just want to exchange it. felicia is working - i watched ripley's game w. john malkovi

you know how you're going through your day and these really odd random thoughts come out of nowhere. i was having one of these today - i was thinking about what happens to sitcom stars who have one hit and then we never hear from them again. do they get non-acting jobs? do they live off the syndication royalties? and then i thought of george jefforson's white neigbour on the jeffersons - he was the big guy who was married to a black women which caused george a lot of problems - the mixed marriage and all. (see upper left in pic above) so anyways - i open up my computer - yahoo is my homepage and THERE HE IS! the actor!!! Franklin Cover died of penumonia!!! this guy has been unheard from since this show went off the air. the day i think of him he drops dead!!! how wierd is that - pray i don't think of you today. got the sermon done - interesting tidbit - there are 3 stories of the bible of women coming to draw water from a well - in each instance their lives are changed fore

i have a spine that is twisted and a wacked out hip. consequently, i went to see a physiotherapist specialist today. he asked me to touch my toes, i couldn't. he said - you'll be able to do that later today. i thought - so what. he made me do all of these stretches and then he started to twist me like a pretzel. after 40 minutes i could touch my toes. the physio was very happy - had a large grin on his face and told me - i told you, i'd be able to get you to touch your toes. then i started to think - so what? how does this make my life better? before i could not touch my toes - now i could. how does this make my life better? what have i achieved? why does this bring my physio so much satisfaction? i'm starting to think that the next time i go i'm going to touch my toes at the beginning and then after he does his shenanigans i will pretend to NOT be able to touch my toes - that should crush his spirit for a few hours. worked on sermon - jacob had 2 women. - gen 29

i got nothing

had a meeting with my buddy murray this morning - he is a very bright committed christian. he has also suffered from parkinsons for the past 14 yrs and has had a real diffcult month as some of his meds started to mis-fire - please pray for him. then had my quiet time at my usual starbucks - picked up gospel in a pluralist society by newbign - probably one of the most significant christian books written in the 20th century. came home - hung out w. my cousin rachel and the fam. went and saw matchpoint - excellent film on luck, lying and consequences. highly recommended. also may be the first woody allen film not located in manhattan. decided to go w. rachel to the pan pacific to check her into her room. while in the lobby of that beautiful hotel my cel-phone goes off, reminding me of a meeting i had at 5 at a coffee shop near my apt.! i grab a cab and get back there. the cabbie starts complaining about some bus driver who gave him the finger and how the cabbie jumped out of his car, ban

totally windy and rainy day today. we went for our usual brunch at milestones today. carla is in town - so i met her, amy and mike for coffee - that was fun. later they dropped by to play w. adam. my cousin rachel is here from san diego - she was supossed to get in at 3 but her flight was cancelles - she got in at 6:30 - her bags are supossed to come by 10. am reading romans right now - it is such a tight cogent presentation of the gospel. probably paul's finest work. i should probably take another course in it - packer used to teach at regent - hope he does again. was looking at the regent summer catalogue - i think i'll go to the pastor's conference - not sure about if i'll take any other courses.

the morning was fine. after that things went downhill. started the depression coming on and then it reached a crescendo late in the afternoon. came home and couldn't shake this funk. please please pray for me - i have not felt this low in a long long time - the reasons are complex and personal. i'm throwing out a lifeline here.

god tells jacob i will be with you, i will protect you. jacob is running away from the wrath of his brother esau who has defrauded of his blessing. it amazes me that the first thing god says to jacob are words of protection and assurance, instead of judgement and condemnation. jacob knows he was wrong - he doesn't need to be reminded of it. also - i've decided that if i ever have to fight terrorism it will not be in a jack bauer way, more in a edgar stiles kind of way - by furiosly typing on a keyboard while eating dortitos. still sore from my run from 2 days ago!